Stock options expiry: One important point that was not mentioned by OP is the typical contract clause most startups use that changes the expiry of your vested options from something like 10 years while you're employed to 30 days if you leave the startup. You took a below-market salary in exchange for equity options and if you leave your job you can't keep those options because you have to exercise them, otherwise they'll expire worthless. Basically, once you leave the company, you have to pay the company to buy its stock, otherwise your options expire and you get nothing in exchange for your sacrifice!
Just that I came here from reddit where this was at the top of r/programming at the time. Full of vibrant discussion and upvotes.
On HN ... it was 22 hours old and all evidence suggesting that it was never noticed here (no comments), but very popular elsewhere (a lot of upvotes/submissions)
edit: it still is on top of r/programming with over a 1000 points.
Very compelling content, everyone knows here isn't the place to talk about it. You have to keep in mind, YC points to HN as the place to go show off for PG. It literally says that on the how to apply page. Even if you're not here to suck up, you can be shadow-banned for being too critical of YC or the startups they've funded.
edit: And thats just for me as a guy who doesn't post under a name connected to me or my online identity in any way. People for whom their comments can follow them around have even more reason to bite their tongue.
That thought had certainly crossed my mind, but I thought it was just paranoia, the continued disparity between /r/programming and here though does lend credence to the the theory.
I agree with a bit of this but I think this is more about managing unreallistic expectations than about start-ups. I wrote a rebuttal to this here - http://wp.me/s2ikdZ-startups
See http://gigaom.com/2011/06/05/5-mistakes-you-cant-afford-to-m...